Articles by: Laura Patterson

The holiday season presented a number of opportunities to watch family and friend videos and listen to stories. We laughed together as we watched the video of one of the toddlers enjoying a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the shock on his face when the family dog grabbed what was left and devoured it; we cheered in unison while we watched the video of one cousin cross the finish line of her first marathon; and we shared tears as we watched the goodbye video from a loved one who waged the battle against cancer and lost. What makes these shared stories so compelling? It is our ability to feel other people’s pain and pleasure – captured in the word we know as empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another and it stems from a collective of what is known as mirror neurons. These mirror neurons enable us to literally ‘feel’ someone else’s pleasure or pain. When you see someone performing an action and you can imagine yourself taking it as well, your mirror neurons are firing. Read more ›

All marketing leaders in the process of seeking to prove and continuously improve the value of marketing encounter at least some objections from team members. Whether they are spoken or unspoken (e.g. the fear of being measured and found wanting) it can be challenging to overcome these objections. If you find yourself in this situation heading into 2015, here are some ideas, based on these most-frequent excuses the marketing leaders (CMOs, VPs and Directors of Marketing) we work with on Marketing Performance Management (MPM) initiatives have had to overcome. Read more ›

Finance continues to gain greater influence and authority over the business as a whole, including marketing. According to Gary Patterson, CEO of advisory firm Fiscal Doctor, Inc.,“…today’s CFOs are expected to play the role of both COO [chief operating officer] and CFO, which is even more of a strategic position.” Read more ›

Headlines and articles on the topic of Customer Experience are everywhere – and for good reason. In their 2014 Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing, eConsultancy declared that “customer experience is the single most exciting opportunity for 2014.” A recent study by Forrester and Harvard Business Review found that ONLY: Read more ›

Maybe this story sounds familiar to you: The marketing team at a mid-size, global B2B company that operates offers products for the shipping, mining, and energy industries is developing their marketing plan. Their plan includes producing a number of application and customer videos for YouTube and their website, conference papers, white papers, contributed articles for key publications, blog posts, case studies, website demos, webinars, and slide shares – well you get the idea. Lots and lots of content will be pushed out into lots and lots of channels. They plan to use their email lists, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogger ecosystem to get the word out about the content and capabilities. Intensifying and amplifying their reach is their goal. Read more ›

It’s never been more challenging to achieve market leadership. Product life cycles are shorter, there is greater price transparency, both stockholders and customers have higher expectations and are less loyal, and there are more channels, countries, competition, and distinct segments to manage.

The “mores” also make it extremely challenging to lead the marketing function. Whether you’re a marketing manager, director, vice president, or CMO, there is more data to crunch, more silos to tear down, more marketing disciplines to manage and more marketing technology to evaluate and implement. And certainly there is more pressure from the C-Suite to prove and improve the value of marketing. Read more ›